Kammili v. Kammili

• Decision Date: 02 June 2020
• Docket Number: AC 41576
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: Srinivas KAMMILI v. Saisudha KAMMILI

197 Conn.App. 656

232 A.3d 102

Srinivas KAMMILI

v.Saisudha KAMMILI

AC 41576

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued December 9, 2019

Officially released June 2, 2020

David V. DeRosa, Naugatuck, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Steven R. Dembo, with whom were Caitlin E. Kozloski, Hartford, and, on the brief, P. Jo Anne Burgh, Glastonbury, for the appellee (defendant).

Alvord, Prescott and Lavery, Js.

PRESCOTT, J.

The plaintiff, Srinivas Kammili, appeals from the judgment of the trial court dissolving his marriage to the defendant, Saisudha Kammili. The plaintiff makes numerous claims¹ on appeal, including that the trial court (1) improperly declined to admit many of his exhibits into evidence, (2) failed to address several of his pretrial motions in a timely manner, and (3) inequitably distributed the marital property, specifically, the parties’ bank accounts, real property, and certain gold jewelry.² We disagree with the plaintiff and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the court.

The record reveals the following facts and procedural history. The plaintiff commenced this marital dissolution action on March 30, 2017. The parties tried the case to the court on January 25 and 26, 2018. Although the plaintiff was represented by an attorney when he commenced this action, he ultimately represented himself at trial.

The trial court issued a memorandum of decision on April 3, 2018, in which it dissolved the parties’ marriage and, among other things, distributed the parties’ assets.³ The court, in its decision, also entered additional orders concerning, inter alia, eleven outstanding pretrial motions.

On April 19, 2018, the plaintiff filed a motion to reargue, in which he raised, inter alia, many of the claims he brings in this appeal. The court denied the plaintiff's motion to reargue. This appeal followed. Additional facts will be set forth as necessary.

I

The plaintiff first argues that the trial court improperly declined to admit "at least [twenty]" of his exhibits into evidence because he failed to comply with the trial management order.⁴ Moreover, the plaintiff asserts that the trial court's refusal to admit his exhibits harmed him because it prevented the court from comprehending his assertion that certain real property in India, which was owned in whole or in part by individuals other than the parties to the action, should nonetheless be distributed as marital property.⁵ Ultimately, the plaintiff claims that the court's refusal to admit many of his exhibits constituted an abuse of discretion. We decline to review this claim.

We begin by stating the well settled principles concerning this court's ability to review a party's evidentiary claims. "It is the responsibility of the appellant to provide an adequate record for review." Practice Book § 61-10 (a) ; see also Practice Book § 60-5. Importantly, if a party challenging an evidentiary ruling on appeal "failed to have [an excluded exhibit] marked for identification, it is not part of the record and [this court is] unable to review the ruling which excluded it from admission into evidence." Carpenter v. Carpenter , 188 Conn. 736, 745, 453 A.2d 1151 (1982).⁶ Moreover, "[a]lthough we allow [self-represented] litigants some latitude, the right of self-representation provides no attendant license not to comply with relevant rules of procedural and substantive law ." (Emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted.) Traylor v. State , 332 Conn. 789, 806, 213 A.3d 467 (2019).

In the present case, the court admitted four of the exhibits that the plaintiff offered at trial. As for exhibits that the trial court excluded, the plaintiff never requested that any of these exhibits be marked for identification. Indeed, in his reply brief, the plaintiff admits as much. Because the plaintiff failed to request that his excluded evidence be marked for identification, and he has not pointed us to, nor are we aware of, an adequate substitute in the record that would allow us to analyze the contents of his excluded evidence, we conclude that the record is inadequate to review his evidentiary claim.⁷

II

The plaintiff next claims that the trial court abused its discretion by not considering eleven of his pretrial motions in a timely manner. The plaintiff asserts that the court improperly delayed consideration of his pretrial motions because he failed to comply with the trial management order. He does not assert, however, that the court ultimately decided the motions incorrectly. In essence, the plaintiff argues that, by not hearing his motions in a timely manner, he was precluded from obtaining certain information from the defendant through discovery and that this prevented him from providing the court with the information that it needed to distribute marital assets equitably. We disagree.

We review a party's challenge to a court's decision regarding docket management for an abuse of discretion. See, e.g., Aldin Associates Ltd. Partnership v. Hess Corp. , 176 Conn. App. 461, 476, 170 A.3d 682 (2017). Although a trial court has broad discretion in managing its docket; see GMAC Mortgage, LLC v. Ford , 144 Conn. App. 165, 182, 73 A.3d 742 (2013) ; "a trial court must consider and decide on a reasonably prompt basis all motions properly placed before it ...." Ahneman v. Ahneman , 243 Conn. 471, 484, 706 A.2d 960 (1998).

The following additional facts are relevant to our resolution of this claim. On October 10, 2017, the court ordered that all pending pretrial motions were to be considered at trial.⁸ In its memorandum of decision, the court decided ten of the plaintiff's pretrial motions and one of the defendant's pretrial motions.⁹ The court denied all pending pretrial motions, except for one of the plaintiff's motions, which the court granted in part.¹⁰ Of the plaintiff's pretrial motions that the court denied, only two can be read as pertaining to discovery issues that may have required resolution prior to trial. The remaining motions that the court denied in its memorandum were either moot¹¹ or were of a nature that they did not need to be resolved before trial.¹²

The plaintiff's claim that he was harmed by the timing of the court's adjudication of his pending pretrial motions fails for two reasons. First, to the extent that the plaintiff argues that he was harmed by the court's deciding his pretrial motions pertaining to his discovery requests in its memorandum of decision that it issued after the trial had concluded, his argument is unpersuasive.

Indeed, at a status conference held on December 1, 2017, the plaintiff indicated, after the court had addressed various discovery issues, that he had everything that he needed to try the case. Moreover, the plaintiff concedes in his appellate brief that "[t]here was extensive discovery, including interrogatories and depositions ... [and that] [t]here was very little that each side did not know about the other sides’ position, given the extent of discovery." In light of these statements, the plaintiff has conceded that he was not harmed by the timing of the court's adjudication of his discovery related pretrial motions.

Second, the plaintiff does not assert that the court incorrectly denied any of his ten pretrial motions. Because he does not argue that the court incorrectly denied any of these motions, the plaintiff cannot demonstrate that he was harmed by the substance of the court's decisions. Therefore, because the plaintiff has failed to demonstrate that he was harmed by either the timing or substance of the trial court's decisions on his pretrial motions, we reject his claim that the trial court abused its discretion by not adjudicating his outstanding pretrial motions until after the trial concluded.

III

The plaintiff next claims that the trial court's orders pertaining to the distribution of marital property were improper for various reasons. Specifically, the plaintiff argues that the trial court's distribution of the parties’ bank accounts,¹³ real property, and certain gold jewelry constituted an abuse of discretion. We disagree.

Before addressing the plaintiff's claim and each of its parts, we set forth our well settled standard of review of a trial court's orders pertaining to the distribution of marital property. Our Supreme Court has stated: "The standard of review in family matters is well settled. An appellate court will not disturb a trial court's orders in domestic relations cases unless the court has abused its discretion or it is found that it could not reasonably conclude as it did, based on the facts presented. ... It is within the province of the trial court to find facts and draw proper inferences from the evidence presented. ... In determining whether a trial court has abused its broad discretion in domestic relations matters, we allow every reasonable presumption in favor of the correctness of its action. ... [T]o conclude that the trial court abused its discretion, we must find that the court either incorrectly applied the law or could not reasonably conclude as it did." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Powell-Ferri v. Ferri , 326 Conn. 457, 464, 165 A.3d 1124 (2017). Furthermore, "[i]n reviewing the trial court's [orders distributing marital property] under [the abuse of discretion] standard, we are cognizant that [t]he issues involving [these] orders are entirely interwoven. The rendering of judgment in a complicated dissolution case is a carefully crafted mosaic, each element of which may be dependent on the other." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Kunajukr v. Kunajukr , 83 Conn. App. 478, 481, 850 A.2d 227, cert. denied, 271 Conn. 903, 859 A.2d 562 (2004).

In fashioning orders that distribute marital property, " General Statutes § 46b-81 (c) directs the court to consider numerous separately listed criteria. ... [Section] 46b-81 (a) permits the farthest reaches from an equal division as is possible, allowing the court to assign to either the husband or wife all or any part of the estate of the other. On the...